Just one step
by Charlotte1
Summary: Draco contemplates life without his wife. One shot attempt at a man's heartbreak


Title: **Just one step**

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the words. The rest belongs to the delectable JK Rowling. I am making no money from this whatsoever. I wish!

Summary: Draco's thoughts as he contemplates his next move. He has lost his wife, he's alone now in the world with a young daughter to raise…what's he going to do?

(Non-canon: doesn't fit in with Book 7 events)

_A one-shot piece to go with my Generations series. If you haven't heard of it, go read it, it'll all about the next generation at Hogwarts._

**Just One Step**

I never thought I'd find myself crying over you Granger. I never thought I'd find myself crying over anyone. How many years has it been since you wormed your way into my life and made yourself comfortable between those pillars of hatred I'd developed for people just like you. I never thought I'd love…love with such passion and such magnitude. I never thought I could love a muggle b…a mug…a muggle born. I never thought…

You changed everything. You changed the world and the stars and the sun and the bright light I now see when I shut my eyes and listen to my heart screaming out your name. You made the world a better place…you made it _real_. You made it mine, because that's how I feel, that's how you let me feel. Your love, your pure and untwisted never ending love saved my life and dragged me from the dark. I clawed to that life, but I couldn't fight it, I couldn't fight you.

What am I going to do without you?

How can you abandon me in a world I've only just come to know? How can you leave so much behind? The world isn't ready to be without you dear, _I'm _not ready. I want you back. I need you. _She_ needs you…that beautiful little girl with her mother's smile and her mother's mind. What am I going to do? I will never be to her what you have always been. She's only ever known the gentle and comforting softness of her mother who loved her so dearly and now she is left with the hard edges of a broken man who spends too much of his time away from her.

It's not fair.

The world is grey, the sun dim and the wind unforgiving. It's biting at my face, howling round my body as though it knows…but how can it know? How can anyone know how scared I am? I couldn't have found a more desolate place to say goodbye. This cliff top, it reminds me of a memory I'm sure you will have forgotten. Six years ago, just after Leshia was born, we came to a place just like this one to celebrate the creation of our family. It was a day just like this one; cold grey skies filled the horizon and angry waves crashed down on jagged rocks far below us.

Then there was hope. Then the bleak surroundings of our getaway couldn't take from us the fact that we'd done it. We'd made it you and I and we had a beautiful baby girl to show the world how far we'd come. We were nineteen, still so young, but our love and our child and that ring on your finger, it showed the world we'd made it through the darkest of times. When war and hatred and death had striven to stand between us we fought side by side till we reached the other end more in love than ever…Leshia will always represent that hope. She will become as beautiful and strong as her mother before her; I know Ginny and Harry will see to that.

I wish I only had the strength to see her grow up. I wish I didn't have to…

You can't blame me. You can't blame me for being weak. You can't blame me for leaving her all alone…_you've_ left her! You've left us both! She's better off without me. I can't be the father she needs.

Just one step…one step and I'll see you again. One step and the pain will be gone. One step and I'll never be alone again. I can't live without you Hermione. I can't make it through the long cold nights. I can't make it through the cruel long days. I can't do this without you.

Leshia will understand…won't she?

I love her as much as I love her mother. That something so beautiful, so loving, so miraculous could have come from something so wretched as me… I'll miss her smile more than I can express; the way she would run to us in the morning and find such pleasure in waking us. She was such a happy little thing…you wouldn't recognise her. She's a little wreck.

And I'm leaving her?

I don't know…I don't know what to do Hermione! I need you to tell me what to do. Do I take that step and join you in whatever destiny awaits me in death or do I leave this place, return to London and ease our baby's suffering at the expense of my sanity…

She would be alone, alone as I am now.

I can't…

One step…

I can't…

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Written while listening to 'the Sacking of Professor Trelawney' - quite a moving piece actually, if you have the soundtrack to the Order of the Phoenix try reading it with that track playing. Anyway like I said, if you fancy another series to get your teeth into after HP has sadly finished, head over to my generations series :) Currently working on Story 4


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